concentration camp
noun
: a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard
—used especially in reference to camps created by the Nazis in World War II for the internment and persecution of Jews and other prisoners
The Nazi soldiers hauled [Mordechai] Strigler off to a concentration camp, and carved swastikas into his cheeks and forehead with a razor blade. Over the next five years, he was sent from one concentration camp or slave-labor camp to another.—
David Remnick
David RemnickShe ended up dying in a concentration camp, just a few months before she would have been liberated.—Marilyn Reynolds
Marilyn ReynoldsThe V2 killed thousands of British civilians while 20,000 concentration camp inmates died as slave labourers during its manufacture in the closing stages of the second world war.—Anna Tomforde et al.
see also death camp
Anna Tomforde et al.Examples of concentration camp in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
New York Supreme Court Judge Althea Drysdale on April 23 ordered the Art Institute of Chicago to return a drawing by Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele to the heirs of its onetime owner, who died in a concentration camp in 1941.
—News Desk, Artforum, 25 Apr. 2025
Somehow Petr had managed to bring his birthday gift to the station unnoticed among the family’s suitcases, and 87 years later concentration camp survivor Gidon Lev still feels the sting of being forced to leave it behind.
—Dina Kraft, Christian Science Monitor, 24 Apr. 2025
As Slate previously noted, it has rarely been used since its inception and was last invoked to justify detaining Japanese noncitizens in concentration camps during World War II.
—Abby Monteil, Them., 8 Apr. 2025
But in fact, Franklin Roosevelt himself referred to them as concentration camps.
—Ari Daniel, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for concentration camp
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News Desk, Artforum, 25 Apr. 2025
Somehow Petr had managed to bring his birthday gift to the station unnoticed among the family’s suitcases, and 87 years later concentration camp survivor Gidon Lev still feels the sting of being forced to leave it behind.
—Dina Kraft, Christian Science Monitor, 24 Apr. 2025
As Slate previously noted, it has rarely been used since its inception and was last invoked to justify detaining Japanese noncitizens in concentration camps during World War II.
—Abby Monteil, Them., 8 Apr. 2025
But in fact, Franklin Roosevelt himself referred to them as concentration camps.
—Ari Daniel, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for concentration camp
Cite this Entry
“Concentration camp.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concentration%20camp. Accessed 23 May. 2025.
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